Prime Time Crime

TORONTO - The advertising has been aimed
mainly at the Progressive Conservative Party by 2 labour umbrella
groups, Working
Families and Project Ontario, which both
have strong ties to other political parties.This is all completely legal in
Ontario.(Globe & Mail)MORE:
Players

OTTAWA - Corporate tax cuts were supposed to
spur economic growth and job creation, but a new study looking at more
than 90 years of data argues those cuts have done nothing to help growth
- in fact, it shows they may have slowed the economy down.(Huffington
Post)REPORT:
Do corporate income tax rate reductions accelerate growth?

OTTAWA - In a little-known law that Parliament has already passed, these
officeholders are known as politically exposed persons (PEP)
and deemed at risk of being involved in corruption, money laundering and
the financing of terrorism. Financial institutions will be required to
keep special tabs on them. (Globe & Mail)MORE:Financial
Action Task ForceFATF website

OTTAWA - Public Works Minister Diane Finley
acted improperly and violated the Conflict of Interest Act by funding a
Markham community centre in 2011 as minister of human resources and
social development, the federal ethics commissioner said.(CBC)MORE:PMO says Finley
acted in good faith

OTTAWA - Two business groups say they're
alarmed government research used to justify sweeping changes to the
temporary foreign worker program appears to contain several flaws as
more companies find inaccuracies.(Globe & Mail)MORE:Data doesn't
correspond with reality

OTTAWA - The cost of paying Conservative
political staffers working in a network of satellite minister's offices
ballooned by 70% during the same years the government was asking
departments to tighten their belts. (CP)
COMMENT:What price, democracy?

EDMONTON - A platform promise from a candidate
for the leadership of the Progressive Conservative Party, to limit terms
for elected officials in Alberta's government is being met with
criticism - legal experts say it infringes on the Canadian Charter of
Rights and Freedoms.(CTV)MORE:Term limit

Premiers in the East appears to be doing a better job at managing their
provinces’ finances than those in central and western Canada, a new
report from the Fraser Institute concludes. (CTV) REPORT:
Spending habits ranked
Canadian Premiers

OTTAWA -
Political pressure and bureaucratic haste are behind a litany of
financial management problems at the Canadian Northern Economic
Development Agency.
(CBC) MORE: Yukon Energy Corp gets cash from CanNorYDC

OTTAWA - The Liberal government has introduced
new legislation to remove barriers to citizenship erected by its
Conservatives predecessors while retaining and extending officials'
authority to deal with fraud.(Toronto Star)

YELLOWKNIFE - Even without political parties
to clarify things, the message Northwest Territories voters sent Monday
night was unmistakable: Business as usual will not do.(CBC)MORE:
NWT general election 2015

OTTAWA - The Harper government spent more than
$180,000 last year to run the office of a corporate social
responsibility counsellor for the Canadian mining industry.The government says it cost $181,600 to
operate the office from October 2013 to October 2014.However, the position of counsellor was
vacant all that time.(CP) PREVIOUS: Money for
nothingOffice with nothing to do

OTTAWA - A
Conservative
pollsterhas
been censured by the market research industry's watchdog for conducting
a misinformation campaign against Liberal MP
Irwin.
An investigation by the Marketing Research and Intelligence Association
has concluded that the actions of
Campaign Research Inc
tarnished the image of the market research profession. (CTV)

VANCOUVER
- Brian
Alexander
is a self-proclaimed Freeman-on-the-Land and one of a growing number of
Canadian followers of the so-called "sovereign citizen" or "Natural
Persons" movement. Adherents have "freed" themselves from what they see
as an overbearing government that has overstepped its bounds.
(CP) MORE: OPP
is watching

OTTAWA -
Privy Council officials have ended months of
stonewalling and handed over documents requested by the federal
information watchdog only after Information Commissioner
Robert Marleau threatened to have his staff
enter the Privy Council offices and seize the paperwork themselves.
(Toronto Star)

EDMONTON - MP Peter Goldring is now
sitting as an independent, after he was pulled over at 95 St and 153 Ave
at about 12:30am on Sunday, Dec 4, by an EPS roving patrol as part of
the Check Stop program. (CTV) MORE:
Peter Goldring

TORONTO - Ontario's Liberal government has nixed the idea of using
legislation to ban chiefs of staff and other behind-the-scenes political
decision makers from attending fundraisers, as they prepare to prohibit
politicians from doing the same.(CP)

OTTAWA - The Liberal government started the 2016-17 fiscal year off with
some 'unprecedented' spending, the federal budget watchdog revealed.Expenditures reached $62.9B over the 3-month period.(Global)

OTTAWA - Information commissioner, Suzanne Legault,
recommends in a special report report to Parliament that specific
controls be placed on instant messaging to preserve government records and
respect the access to information law. It found there were
approximately 98,000 BlackBerrys issued and that the instant messages that
are sent and received on those devices are automatically deleted, usually after 30 days.
(CBC)

PETERBOROUGH - Former Conservative MP Dean Del
Mastro has been sentenced to 1 month in jail, followed by 4 months house
arrest, for violating the Elections Act in 2008.Del Mastro has filed an appeal of his October conviction.
(CBC)

OTTAWA - Justice Minister Peter MacKay has
called Bill C-13, the anti-cyberbullying legislation he introduced last
week, a key tool in "ensuring that our children are safe from online
predators and from online exploitation.” Although child psychologists and
youth activists support increased attention to this issue, they say C-13 is
unlikely to stop cyberbullying. (CBC)

OTTAWA - The Conservative
caucus has accepted a government proposal that would ease the burden on
taxpayers by more than tripling how much members of Parliament and
senators kick into their pension plans. (CBC)

AUGSBURG- Karlheinz Schreiber, who was
involved in a corruption scandal
linked to former German chancellor Helmut Kohl, has been convicted of tax
evasion and sentenced to 6½ years in prison. In Canada, Schreiber was the
key witness in a public inquiry into his business
dealings
with former prime minister Brian Mulroney. (CBC)

OTTAWA - The prime minister’s national
security adviser, federal lawyers who work on terrorism cases and
intelligence analysts in the PCO would be forever
forbidden from discussing sensitive aspects of their work under proposed
new rules. (CP)

TORONTO - 2 Ontario
Liberal operatives, including one of Premier Kathleen Wynne's top advisers,
'appear' to have broken provincial bribery laws by offering a former
candidate a government job in exchange for dropping out of the Sudbury
by-election.(Globe & Mail)

NUNAVUT - The
territory's
consensus-based governance model, where the Speaker, premier and
cabinet ministers are elected by the entire assembly, makes legislative
goings-on largely devoid of the partisan parries and ripostes so typical
of its neighbours to the south.(CBC)

MONTREAL - A Quebec
court has ruled in favour of former Via Rail chair Jean Pelletier
in his wrongful dismissal suit and ordered Ottawa and the Crown corporation
to pay more than $335,000 for lost salary and damage to his reputation.

Chuck Cadman's former financial advisor says the late Independent MP was in
good financial shape and would not have been tempted by a $1M life
insurance policy allegedly offered by the Conservative Party in exchange
for a vote.